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How the pandemic shaped the future of STEAM education in schools - Education Middle East
On the upside, e-learning accelerated collaboration among students and
helped them develop a range of skills including sharing ideas in a group,
logging in to multiple accounts, keeping track of their schedule and managing
assignments.

“The steep learning curve of digital literacy was
significant, and students began to show
stronger ownership of their learning; organising
files, preparing lesson materials ahead of time,
and seeking out further feedback from
teachers,” says Chandini Misra, Head of Senior
School, Repton Al Barsha.

Chandini Misra, Head of Senior
School, Repton Al Barsha
Meeting the challenges

While educators battled myriads of challenges owing to different modes of
instruction, suppliers of STEAM solutions faced challenges of a different kind
altogether ranging from a drastic drop in sales to logistics and pricing issues.

“Online learning was the new way forward. That however, brought in new
challenges. The flood of providers from India and other parts of the world,
wherein cost structures are abysmally low led to a downward pressure on
pricing, as did the financial pressure on households in the UAE,” says Priyanka
Chandanani, Managing Partner, The Logix Engine.

Suppliers faced considerable delays in receiving products from overseas too. An
increase in the cost of shipping has added to their burden, admits Tanmay

Sankhe, Dept Head, STEAM Education – Emerging Stars Learning Center LLC.

“In the year 2020-21, the business was down 80%. Usually STEAM programmes
are outsourced by most of the schools here in the UAE. We believe there was a
complete halt on providing STEAM courses in the school unless the school had
its own dedicated STEAM lab,” says Sankhe.

However, with things getting back to normal, the business is getting close to
pre-COVID times,” adds Sankhe.

STEAM learning trends

Creating lesson videos, collaborating and sharing resources online, virtual
workshops, exhibitions, conferences, fairs, competitions and events are some of
the practices that were adopted during the pandemic. It is expected that these
are going to be carried over post pandemic too. “The simulations, data capture
and access to experts that we can now use in the classroom give a very
different perspective to the learning experiences; and we will continue to use
them after the pandemic is over,” says Misra.

There is a growing interest in coding, python, robotics and 3D designing as well
as AI, virtual simulation, virtual reality, personalized learning, tutoring, feedback
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